Christopher Siters

RPTM 120
Dr Dattilo
L02 Play – Then and Now Journal Reflection
Reflecting on childhood

1) What types of play activities did you engage in most often?

2) What benefits did you gain from participating in those activities?

3) Why do you feel you benefitted in that way?

Thinking about today

1) What does play look like now?

2) Do you still participate in playful activities? Why or why not?

3) How do you/ could you integrate play into your daily life?

4) What benefits would you gain from being playful at this time in your life?

Looking back to childhood, one of the “playful” activities that I engaged in the most were

team sports (not necessarily willingly); my mother figured it would be good for me to be outside

and active, which I did agree with, but we lived on a busy street in the city so playing outside

wasn’t easy. I liked playing soccer the most, but the games were on weekends and since my

parents were divorced, my father didn’t want to spend his weekends at my soccer games; so, I

ended up playing football, baseball, basketball, etc., and hated all of them. I think what

benefitted me most from those activities was learning to work with people as a team, and to

persevere through things even though you hate every second of it because eventually the

practice/ game/ season will be over. And, even if it is generally something you don’t particularly

enjoy, there are aspects of it…the summer sunshine; a good, ballpark hotdog; a trophy; etc.
Christopher Siters
RPTM 120
Dr Dattilo
My free-play was usually spent reading books or making believe I was characters from

books/ movies/ TV (I guess what would be considered “LARPing” nowadays). I also enjoyed

playing with building toys (like Legos), often constructing those fictional worlds and/ or building

my own (make believing). I grew up in a relatively poor family, so actual toys were few and far

between, and often played with hand-me-downs from my cousins (both girls), so I learned to like

playing with dolls and houses and things like that as well. Video games had also become

accessible with the N-64 and Gameboy, which I enjoyed but technology definitely outpaced our

family income, so I never really got big into video games. I was a huge Pokémon fan though,

since it started with the trading cards, and that was when I started to really get into drawing and

art stuff, often creating my own random, Pokemon-esque creatures. Honestly, anything that let

me put my imagination to use. One of the big take-aways from imagining oneself to be another

(real or fictional) is a great way to develop empathy skills by being able to mentally put oneself

in another’s shoes and to think/ see from their perspective.

It’s actually interesting that I am taking this class and have this assignment now, as I had

recently realized that, now, as an adult, I am able to fulfill my childhood fantasies. Laboring

under the preconception that adults have to “grow up,” whereas we are now seeing an explosion

of adults “playing.” I’m sure more adults than ever are considered “gamers” now, or all the

people who go to cosplay events and such.

And so, I had started to scour the internet looking for things that I remember from my

childhood that I enjoyed and/ or the modern equivalent(s). About two years ago now I purchased

for myself a Nintendo Switch and the newest Pokémon games that had come out; another thing

in particular was this set of zoology taxonomy cards that had everything from bacteria to extinct

animals, and I was fascinated by the variety of shapes and sizes, and they often inspired me to
Christopher Siters
RPTM 120
Dr Dattilo
draw random creatures and make up biology facts and such about them. I also purchased a little

STEM learning microscope, since all the ones I had when I was little were secondhand and

usually not in actual working condition. Periods of my childhood were broken up and

accelerated, so I didn’t usually get to enjoy being a child and have fun playing for long before

life called me back to reality; but I remember getting so inspired and immersed in my own

worlds and wanting to write books when I grew up because I had “such an active imagination.”

So now, I’m trying to recapture some of that joy so that I can finally channel it into something

creative…and if it turned into something financially lucrative, I wouldn’t be opposed…

It’s also funny, because thinking about the Legos, when I initially applied to Penn State, I

had applied for the B’Arch program, but unfortunately wasn’t accepted into it; I’ve always had a

fascination with architecture and “building” things, but honestly I’d be just as happy (if not

happier) to design a park as a building.